Chlorides and stainless

MURPH'

There seems to be a few/many different types of stainless steel (actually an alloy) on the market. the 400 series has the carbon and many other components that are used for strenth and other properties too numerous for me to remember.


the real challenge seems to be in the welds as mentioned, during a stik-weld the flux (that gets knocked off) seems to create a bubble over the weld that protects it, probaly not real common with these metals, mig welding is the fastest and probaly what they are using. TIG welding (tungsten inert gas) is probaly the way to go. the gasses used are probaly as important as the material itself. Seems that as the welding takes place, and the material IS molten it actually pulls all kinds of crap in from the air (nitrigen,oxygen, and the likes)THIS IS WHERE supposedly where the weak link developes.contamination!!


THEN THERE are the chlorides that are being blamed, of course the term chlorides is very broad because there are many different types (potassium,sodium, magnesium ,and such)and of course the reactions could be somewhat different depending on what chlorides you have and what alloys you are using (still with me)?here is a link that shows a little of whats happening


http://www.usoe.k12.ut.us/curr/science/sciber00/8th/matter/sciber/chemtype.htm


the numbers on different alloys of stainless represent what it is composed of :30-4 would be 30%nickel and 4%chrome (i believe)most all waters have chlorides to a different degree, i guess it's pot-luck to what kinds you have and how much, and what types of impurities get wrapped up in the welds. and it gets better, seems that the copper pipes are turning the lady-of-the-houses' hair "GREEN" (in celebration of saint patrick's day, MAYBE)we have that being remedied.



we have lots of metal labs in the area and testing may take two months (at a tune of 30k)maybe we can take up a collection on "the wall" for the betterment of the industry of course !!


Murph' (SOS)

hot_rod

Had an indirect fail recently

and I got to thinking about chlorides. As you know most of the manufactures of stainless boilers and indirect tanks are stsrting to indicate in the manual, and in Crown's case on the tank, acceptable levels of chlorides. (fairly tight ph range also) I hope more manufacture start publishing acceptable ranges for both tanks and boilers.

I took a sample of the water from this well for a test, and to learn where chlorides come from. According to the treatment expert I visited.... The chlorides level in my sample were very common for water in my area, (17 ppm)lower than the levels indicated by manufactures.

The water chemist asked if the home had a water softner. Actually it had recently been replaced as the old one kept failing. Sodium chloride (salt) and sometimes potassium chloride are the most common elements used to backwash softners. This is where the chlorides POTENTIALLY enter the picture, or tank Wish I had a sample from downstream of the softner, especially the old one!

If the softner is not properly manufactured, adjusted, or fails it's possible that the salt used for the backwash in not adequately washed on the final rinse. He explained that the wrong sized orfice in the brine pick up line could cause this, inadequate cycle time on the final rinse cycle, and a few other valve failures could cause very high levels of chloride in the hw tank.

Got me thinking! How many softner installers know this? How many check the functions of the meter heads? How many are aware of the importance of chloride and stainless? I never knew!

Softner manufactures tread a fine line with regards to backwash cycles. On one hand they want to assure adequate backwash to remove all the left over salt, from the ion exchange process) on the final rinse. Yet on the other hand they don't want to waste too much water during the backwash cycle. How much is enough? 20, 40, 60 gallon backwash. Lot's of water to run down the drain. (most RO units require 4 gallons of waste to generate 1 useable gallon)

I had a large % of failed SS tanks in the late 80's and early 90's. All brands. I've always wondered now what caused all the premature failures. It was always my fault, of course Perhaps softners played a larger part. Better weld methods have been implicated, and I think different, and multi blends of stainless are now bring used.

Excessive solder flux, or lack of flushing could be another often overlooked sourse of chloride levels. How many plumbers adequately flush new copper piping before turning it into the indirect tanks? And exactly what is adequate. I've seen some plumbers use a whole can of flux per job. Excessive, overfluxing is pretty common from my obersvations, around here anyways!

Anyone else have thoughts?

hot rod

Dale

Question of cost

All of us over 40 remember the almost instant failure of stainless vent pipe in the early 80's at least the gas/propane group do, heat exchangers too. So, finding clorine to be the fault the industry went to 29-4c stainless, not quite hastaloy but a real good acid tank grade. I think the soft water side can't be changed much, answer is for the indirect manufactueres to offer a tank that will put up with low ph and higher clorines. and then give that tank a longer warranty. The labor is the big item, IMHO

MURPH'

HOW LONG........

Would this take, Crown rep wanted a sample of our water after a failure. kinda knew what the answer would be before the test went out...... hmmmmm!! Anyways the wholesale house was not aware of the well water-to-stainless scenario. I was also tole that most city water connections would not pass the chloride (acid) test, against the epa allowable guidelines. Now what ?? back to chemistry school??



Murph' (SOS)
(excuse my typos,i got little bitty keyboard now)

Heatermon

Softner Thoughts from Southern Cal

San Diego used to have be raw, unfiltered, end of the line Colorado river water that some people said was the worst in the nation. All I can tell you, is that everyone I knew in the early 70's had a water softner, including our family. I can also tell you, that in 1972 my Dad and a partner started a water heater replacement business due to the fact that the average water heater lasted 3.2 years in our area. All the water heater manufacturers that sold water heaters in our area contracted with our company to provide warranty service for the above average claims that were coming in. This water heater replacement business thrived until the early 80's. It was then that a few things happened. 1. The population explosion required more water from other sources. One major source we now get water from is the California acquaduct, a cement lined trough that lessens the amount of minerals that the water picks up on its way down to us. 2. The increase in population meant that the water districts down here had more customers and money to invest in better water treatment facilities so that the water quality was better. 3. The drought years we experienced led us to conserve water to such a degree that some cities in our area outlawed the installation of water softners that backwashed water down the drain. You could keep the ones that were working, but once they failed and had to be replaced, you had to go to the "Culligan Man's" exchange system. During this time we saw failure rate decrease, but if a water heater tank would leak less than 5 years after installation, over 90% of the time the people would have a water softner (either exchange tank type or self regenerating). I strogly believe that chlorides are the primary cause of problems within plumbing systems (along with pressure, flow velocity and temperature) and encourage testing and maintaining your water systems. As a side note, State water heaters made a "special" water heater for San Diego county. It was a just like their standard water heater in all ways except that it had a hot water nippled anode rod in addition to the standard anode that was also installed. These water heater were only around for a few years until State figured out that they would last too long (no, I'm not kidding). I'm afraid the manufacturers of glass lined, steel tank type water heaters design their products to fail after 10-20 years by adjusting the anode rods within the tank. The only problem is the wide variation of water chemistry that runs across the nation, so they have to try to adjust the anode to cover the "average" water conditions. Their products are now lasting so long that they are giving 6 years instaed of 5 for standard warranties and can give 12 instead of 10 on their delux models (which usually come with double anode rod protection). Now we are seeing some lifetime warranty products (mostly pastic lined tanks and with the caveat "lifetime- as long as YOU own your home"). Anyway, I think you are dead on right with everything you said Hot Rod, keep up the good work.

Heatermon


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hot_rod

All the leaker

I have experienced were either seam welds or the welds at the fittings. I'm not a metalurgist, or water chemist for that matter but something happens when they weld stainless, something in the alloy is altered and it takes a special sheild gas to do it properly, also the crevice at the seams concentrates the attack, somehow, something like that.

Glass lined steel storage tank, on the other hand, seem to pin hole when the glass lining is broached and the holes generally happen at the bottom, and not necessarly at seams. probably due to mineral build up, causing heat build up on the eterior side also.

I suppose the more we learn about the water and the limits of the materials the better off we all are.

hot rod

Mike T., Swampeast MO

Softener thoughts from SE MO

Until VERY recently our water came direct from the Mississippi River. It's NOT pretty around here and it's WAY more than mud. During high floods many of the sewage treatment facilities along the banks flood and LOTS of raw is expelled.

It is extremely hard and municiple water plant has to add LOTS of chlorine--you can easily smell it most times of the year--overnight in the fridge in an open container makes it MUCH more tolerable.

LOTS of water softeners installed. Stand-alone water heaters are BY FAR the most common. WITHOUT a softener they seem to last about 12-15 years. WITH a softener you can literally cut that time in half.

Water treatment companies LOUDLY deny that their softeners cause ANY problem with hot water heaters, but I'm highly suspicious.

City is just about done with a water "upgrade" with deep wells close by the river (still river water of course, but now it's "filtered" somewhat) and have supposedly started some sort of system-wide softening as we're on quite soft limestone and water from wells is said to be even harder than before but they say they are using much less chlorine.

It's going to be interesting to see what happens. Wonder if ALL water heaters are going to start failing rapidly?

In our typical "years behind the country" manner a micro-brew opened recently. I went by and asked, "Do you use Cape water for your beer?" They said, "yes" and I replied, "well, I'll try it anyway." It WASN'T good!